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Cursor.orgMediaTransparency.org sponsor More stories by Bill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs' Media Transparency writersAndrew J. Weaver FundometerEvaluate any page on the World Wide Web against our databases of people, recipients, and funders of the conservative movement. |
ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz Podcasting: A new weapon for the rightAre conservative think tanks and advocacy groups glomming on to podcasting as they did with talk radio?After Apple Computer announced its new video-capable iPod, the San Francisco Chronicle's Mark Morford, a funny, controversial and ever-iconoclastic columnist, enthused that the new "sexy" and "delicious" device would usher in a future where pornography would be available at the flick of a finger. Morford isn't the only one imagining the future of podcasting. Jennifer Biddison, the Coalitions Manager and Associate Editor for Townhall.com -- one of the oldest and most successful right wing networking websites -- maintains that while podcasting has already become a useful political tool for the conservative movement its potential has yet to be tapped. Conservative organizations, which have a proven track record of getting their message out via a sophisticated coordinated network -- foundations, think tanks and public policy institutes, the Internet (including the blogosphere), newspapers and magazines, talk radio -- are now "hopping aboard" the podcasting train, Biddison reported in "Podcasting: The latest trend in talk," an article recently posted at Townhall.com. Thanks to the financial wherewithal and technical savvy of a handful of right wing organizations, conservatives can listen to many of their favorite right wing radio talk jockeys, tune in to a discussion about privatizing social security and other critical policy questions, and catch the latest presentation from the Heritage Foundation, whenever they darned well feel like it. For the uninitiated, podcasting is defined by Wikipedia as "the distribution of audio or video files, such as radio programs or music videos, over the internet ... for listening on mobile devices and personal computers. A podcast is a webfeed of audio or video files placed on the Internet for anyone to subscribe to." In short, "Podcasting's essence is about creating content (audio or video) for an audience that wants to listen when they want, where they want, and how they want." "Podcasting" is a "portmanteau word"; a linguistic term that refers to the fusion of two words. Coined in 2004, it combined "iPod" and "broadcasting," according to Wikipedia, the free online interactive encyclopedia. Usage of the term has become so ubiquitous that it was designated the 2005 word of the year by the New Oxford American Dictionary. Conservatives take to PodcastingPodcasting is not new, although it has more recently landed squarely in the political sphere. In March of 2005, John Edwards, the Democratic Party's candidate for vice president in 2004, "became the first national-level US politician to hold his own podcast", Wikipedia noted. In the summer of 2005, President Bush "became a podcaster of sorts, when the White House website added an RSS 2.0 feed to the previously downloadable files of the president's weekly radio addresses." The Republican National Committee has its own podcasts at GOP.com. According to Townhall's Jennifer Biddison, social conservatives have several programs from which to choose, with the Reverend Donald Wildmon's American Family Association (AFA) leading the way. The AFA offers two daily shows: The AFA Report, in which Wildmon looks at current events; and Today's Issues, which features a mix of current events and special guests. "A recent episode of Today's Issues," Biddison reports, "focused on the issue of adultery; with Avoiding the Greener Grass Syndrome author Nancy C. Anderson sharing how her marriage was restored after an affair." Another choice for social conservatives are the podcasts from the Family Research Council (FRC), a powerful conservative Washington, DC-based lobbying group. FRC offers Washington Watch Weekly, hosted by the organization's president, Tony Perkins. A recent episode looked at how President Bush's State of the Union address dealt with family issues, and featured Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) discussing legislation to regulate RU-486, the "abortion drug." People interested in foreign policy or national security issues can check out Danger Zone, a series of programs sponsored by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Former U.S. Ambassador Richard Carlson hosts the weekly show on terrorism. Since Biddison doesn't have the luxury of sitting at her desk all day and listening to public policy discussions, she often accesses her favorite programs while going back and forth from work. During her daily commute, she confesses to being grateful to be able to listen to a Heritage Foundation podcast of Charles Pickering discussing his "judicial confirmation journey," or former CIA Director R. James Woolsey "argu[ing] in favor of wiretapping." The America's Future Foundation offers special programming geared toward young conservatives, while the Ashbrook Center has a series of seminars for history teachers called "Teaching American History Podcasts." Last summer, FreedomWorks podcast on cable franchise reform "was so successful that they're ramping up to do more," Biddison pointed out. And, America's Future Foundation recently started "hosting monthly roundtables primarily for podcast use." While many conservative organizations are providing their podcasts for free, in June 2005, talk radio's Rush Limbaugh launched a commercial podcast available only to members of the Rush 24/7 service, which costs $49.95/year. Podcasting in political campaignsIn a series of pre-election articles entitled "Election 2006 and Social Media" Kate Trgovac, currently the Manager of Web Evolution for Petro-Canada, looked at how five Canadian political parties used "social media" -- podcasting, blogging, emailing, etc. -- "to get their message across...[and] promote their agenda online," during Canada's recently held election. "Social media" Trgovac wrote, was effectively defined by Stowe Boyd the author of the blog Message who is described by the blog Corrente as "... an internationally recognized authority on real-time, collaborative and social technologies." Boyd wrote that social media represented "those forms of publishing that are based on a dynamic interaction, a conversation, between the author and active readers, in contrast with traditional broadcast media where the 'audience' is a passive 'consumer' of 'content.'" As a marketer with strong political interests, Trgovac, who writes about technology, branding, user-experience and other topics on her blog, focused on how the major Canadian political parties were furthering "the political conversation." "Social media," Trgovac wrote, "offers mechanisms (e.g. discussion forums, comments on blogs, event calendar/MeetUps, eCards, even branded downloads) to further a conversation between readers who are interested in a particular topic. This is a change for marketers where we have not always been interested in such a level of discourse; ditto for political parties." The Conservative Party (CPC) -- which emerged victorious -- used "social media extensively," Trgovac reported: "On the home page, in addition to the 'Volunteer,' 'Donate' and 'Request a Lawn Sign' links that are standard fare on political sites in 2006, there are links to Email Updates, Podcasts, eCards and two Blogs." According to Trgovac, the CPC website invited "visitors to subscribe to their podcasts ... [and] provide[d] feeds for both audio podcasts and video casts, along with instructions on how to subscribe in iTunes." Although the podcasts were "not original content produced for the web," they did provided access to a number of speeches of Stephen Harper -- Canada's newly elected Prime Minister. In addition, there was an "assortment of announcements by the CPC and CPC radio ads" as well as videos of the Party's "TV commercials and other video content." "I think podcasting, like other social media tools are incredibly effective for niche constituent groups within larger political entities," Trgovac told Media Transparency in an email interview. "For example, a Toronto-based candidate for a national political party uses podcasts both to address specific local issues that aren't given air-time on the national scene, as well as to address special interest areas that are of importance to him," and his constituents. "The podcast format" is particularly "ideal for our very on demand and mobile culture," Trgovac explained. "I can take podcasts with me where ever I go - something of incredible importance in a society that has a large number of commuters and distracted multi-taskers." Although Trgovac acknowledged that "conservative movements (both political and religious) are often first to market and exploit new technologies to deliver their messages, there is no way that the US conservative movement can 'own' podcasting in the same way that it owns talk radio." Trgovac insisted that "the power of distribution has shifted dramatically and is no longer in the hands of political ideologues," but is now in "the hands of the people."It is relatively inexpensive, so "anyone can podcast." And while the quality of the broadcasts varies, anyone can be a podcaster "and their potential audience could be the same as Rush Limbaugh's or Al Franken's." "We were one of the first conservative think tanks to launch podcasts," John Couretas, the Director of Communications at the Acton Institute (website), told Townhall's Jennifer Biddison. "We began using them in March 2005 and are getting about 200 hits a day. We include lectures and radio interviews in our feeds, in MP3 format. We're accessible via iTunes and recently got our first review, a rave. Podcasts have great potential. But like any other media channel, it's not the technology that matters, it's the content." While only a fool would bet against Mark Morford's prediction that video podcasting will lead to a boom in the distribution of pornography, Townhall's Jennifer Biddison also sees a future where podcasting will become another well-honed partisan political tool that will allow right wing think tanks and Christian conservative advocacy groups to further dominate the political debate. Kate Trgovac has a broader view: She sees podcasting as "the great equalizer," a democratic instrument that has the potential of tapping into a global audience. As they say, stay tuned. sign in, or register to email stories or comment on them.
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MORE ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs'Right Wing foundation-funded anti-environmental think tank grabbing a wider audience for 'free market environmentalism' On the 15th anniversary of Terry Anderson and Donald Leal's book "Free Market Environmentalism" -- the seminal book on the subject -- Anderson, the Executive Director of the Bozeman, Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC - formerly known as the Political Economy Research Center) spoke in late-January at an event sponsored by Squaw Valley Institute at the Resort at Squaw Creek in California. While it may have been just another opportunity to speak on "free market environmentalism" and not the kickoff of a "victory tour," nevertheless it comes at a time when PERC's ideas are taking root.
Bill Berkowitz Neil Bush of Saudi ArabiaDuring recent visit, President’s brother describes the country as a 'kind of tribal democracy' In late February, only a few days after Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh, Neil Bush, for the fourth time in the past six years, showed up for the country's Jeddah Economic Forum. The Guardian reported that Human Rights Watch "said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights." In an interview with Arab News, the Saudi English language paper, Bush described the country as "a kind of tribal democracy."
Bill Berkowitz Newt Gingrich's back door to the White HouseAmerican Enterprise Institute "Scholar" and former House Speaker blames media for poll showing 64 percent of the American people wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances Whatever it is that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to represent in American politics, the guy is nothing less than fascinating. One day he's espousing populist rhetoric about the need to cut the costs of college tuition and the next day he's talking World War III. One day he's claiming that the "war on terror" may force the abridgement of fundamental first amendment rights and the next he's advancing a twenty-first century version of his Contract with America. At the same time he's publicly proclaiming how "stupid" it is that the race for the presidency has already started you know that he's trying to figure out how to out finesse Rudy, McCain and Romney for the nomination. And last week, when Fox News' Chris Wallace cited a poll showing that 64 percent of the public would never vote for him, he was quick to blame those results on how unfairly he was treated by the mainstream media back in the day.
Bill Berkowitz American Enterprise Institute takes lead in agitating against IranDespite wrongheaded predictions about the war on Iraq, neocons are on the frontlines advocating military conflict with Iran After doing such a bang up job with their advice and predictions about the outcome of the war on Iraq, would it surprise you to learn that America's neoconservatives are still in business? While at this time we are not yet seeing the same intense neocon invasion of our living rooms -- via cable television's news networks -- that we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, nevertheless, a host of policy analysts at conservative think tanks -- most notably the American Enterprise Institute -- are being heeded on Iran by those who count - folks inside the Bush Administration.
Bill Berkowitz After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based InitiativeUnmentioned in the president's State of the Union speech, the program nevertheless continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groups With several domestic policy proposals unceremoniously folded into President Bush's recent State of the Union address, two pretty significant items failed to make the cut. Despite the president's egregiously tardy response to the event itself, it was nevertheless surprising that he didn't even mention Hurricane Katrina: He didn't offer up a progress report, words of hope to the victims, or come up with a proposal for moving the sluggish rebuilding effort forward. There were no "armies of compassion" ready to be unleashed, although it should be said that many in the religious community responded to the disaster much quicker than the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union address, however, there was no "compassionate conservatism" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Bill Berkowitz Frank Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag'On the outs with the GOP, legendary degrader of discourse is moving to California He doesn't make great art; nothing he does elevates the human spirit; he doesn't illuminate, he bamboozles. He has become expert in subterfuge, hidden meanings, word play and manipulation. Frank Luntz has been so good at what he does that those paying close attention gave it its own name: "Luntzspeak."
Bill Berkowitz Spooked by MoveOn.org, conservative movement seeks to emulate liberal powerhouseFueled with Silicon Valley money, TheVanguard.org will have Richard Poe, former editor of David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine as its editorial and creative director As Paul Weyrich, a founding father of the modern conservative movement and still a prominent actor in it, likes to say, he learned a great deal about movement building by closely observing what liberals were up to in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Bill Berkowitz Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action jihadFounder and Chair of the American Civil Rights Institute scouting five to nine states for new anti-affirmative action initiatives Fresh from his most recent victory -- in Michigan this past November -- Ward Connerly, the Black California-based maven of anti-affirmative action initiatives, appears to be preparing to take his jihad on the road. According to a mid-December report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Connerly said that he was "exploring moves into nine other states."
Bill Berkowitz Tom Tancredo's missionThe Republican congressman from Colorado will try to woo GOP voters with anti-immigration rhetoric and a boatload of Christian right politics These days, probably the most recognizable name in anti-immigration politics is Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo. Over the past year, Tancredo has gone from a little known congressman to a highly visible anti-immigration spokesperson. "Tancredo has thoroughly enmeshed himself in the anti-immigration movement and with the help of CNN talk show host Lou Dobbs, he has been given a national megaphone," Devin Burghart, the program director of the Building Democracy Initiative at the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group, told Media Transparency.
Bill Berkowitz Institute on Religion and Democracy slams 'Leftist' National Council of ChurchesNew report from conservative foundation-funded IRD charges the NCC with being a political surrogate for MoveOn.org, People for the American Way and other liberal organizations If you prefer your religious battles sprinkled with demagoguery, sanctimoniousness, and simplistic attacks, the Institute on Religion and Democracy's (IRD) latest broadside against the National Council of Churches (NCC) certainly fits the bill.
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